Sharks and the Jersey Shore have a storied history

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A group of fishermen over the weekend watched a great white use their bait bag as a snack. It would't be the first time Jersey has be wen visited by the giant fish, sometimes with awful results. In 1916, there were four people killed in New Jersey shark attacks. A fifth person attacked survived.

The first attack that year was at Beach Haven. The next came at Spring Lake. Then came to in Matawan Creek near Matawan. That was unusual, so much so when a sea captain reported seeing it, he was ignored. When the attacks hit the news, beaches were closed and resorts lost money.

An Asbury Park beach was patrolled by armed motorboats. Bounties were offered for dead sharks. Decades later the incidents influenced former newsman turned author Peter Benchley. He wrote a book you may have heard of that was made into a movie by Steven Spielberg: "Jaws."

Benchley wrote Jaws during winter in a room above a furnace company in Pennington and in the summer in Connecticut. He died in 2006 in Princeton.